Grow Your Marketing Part 10: Presenting Options

What do you do when customers and prospects say ‘No’ to all the emails you send them?

You change the message until they respond.

The goal of this step is to get your prospect to raise their hand by opening an attachment, clicking a link or in some other way opting in to show interest in something you sell.

You are in control of what happens when they do.

Remember our friend, Alan Wusgrove. He’s the author we made up who has written a series of books and is sending out emails in the right sequence to the list of people he has who have bought his Portal Product. Here’s his Step 4 email:

Hello,

You bought by book Slam Bam Wham, the story of an alien invasion gone badly wrong (from the point of view of the aliens) and I value that very much — so I thought I’d give you some options about what you could do next (apart from printing this email off and then shredding it, of course).

1. Would you like a ‘director’s cut’ version of the book, containing various ’deleted scenes’ which didn’t make it past the editor, for only £5.00? Just click here to read more:

[Insert link]

2. Would you like a half-price voucher so that any further book in the Aliens Go Wild series can be downloaded for.. well, half-price?

Click here [Insert link]

3. Are you interested in a discounted membership to the Aliens Club, where you can do all kinds of alien things?

Click here [Insert link]

4. Is there something else which you’d like which I haven’t been able to think of as I’m exhausted after coming up with all these offers?

Please drop me a line at [enter email address]

If you’re not quite ready to get other books from me, you can sign up for news about what’s coming up in the future here (another link).

Stay linked!

You’re offering an easy-to-access menu of alternative actions for those who open your email. Some proportion of the readers who open it will click on one or maybe more of the above. When they do, you can create a whole new channel which keeps that person interested based on what that person has clicked.

Can you see how the power of presenting options can keep your readers engaged and active in some way?

That keeps your readership ‘simmering’, ready for the next book or offer you can generate.

Sending a single ‘presenting options’ email to your list can set off a chain reaction of sales.

Step 5 deals with those readers who have ‘gone cold’, and how to warm them up again… so stay tuned!